In the manufacture of complex electronic multilayer structures, it is frequently necessary to pass conductor lines over each other. In these instances the crossing conductive lines must be insulated from each other to prevent short circuiting. In addition, it is necessary to separate the conductor lines in such manner as to prevent "cross-talk" between the conductive lines, i.e., the accumulation of energy from one layer and the discharge of that energy to the other layer.
It is recognized that dielectric materials situated between opposing conductor layers tend to act as capacitors in the sense that they accumulate electrical charges and then discharge them when a certain charge level is reached. In addition, conductive species such as silver ions, which may be present in the compositions, migrate through the dielectric in the direction of opposite polarity when the circuit is charged or in operation. The tendency of a given dielectric material to allow migration of the conductive species is related to the number of micropaths within the dielectric material which facilitate the movement of ionic charges and which allow ionic migration under DC bias. Thus, to improve the reliability of circuit systems, it would be ideal to have a low capacitance (low k) dielectric material which is so non-porous that it contains virtually no micropaths.
Conventional oxide ceramic systems such as Al.sub.2 O.sub.3 and SiO.sub.2 are not suitable in this regard because they do not sinter at thick film processing conditions and therefore do not densify and form a sufficiently non-porous dielectric film. On the other hand, simple glass systems which readily form an extremely non-porous dielectric glassy film during thick film processing excessively soften during the firing of subsequent layers and thus allow the adjoining conductor to diffuse into the dielectric layer.
In pursuit of the elusive solution of the problem, it has been proposed to use crystallizable glasses as the dielectric material. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,656,984 to Hoffman discloses the use of glasses which form Ba/Al feldspar crystals upon firing. However, these glasses were unsatisfactory for many applications because of their very low temperature coefficient of capacitance (TCC) and high incidence of circuit failures under humid conditions. Furthermore, Amin in U.S. Pat. No. 3,787,219 discloses the use of an admixture of CaTiO.sub.3 with a lead-free glass which forms at least three crystal phases upon firing. While these latter materials had better TCC values and were quite satisfactory for many applications, they have been found to be insufficiently reliable under very humid conditions. Thus, there remains a substantial unmet need for dielectric materials having little or no ionizable species under humid conditions, which sinter to a dense microstructure and thus by having fewer micropaths to negate ionic migrations and thereby improve the reliability of the circuits in which they are used.